Shore Students Join National Walkout

On April 20, Shore Country Day School students participated in the National School Walkout, a movement created and led by students and timed to coincide with the 19th anniversary of the Columbine High School shooting in Littleton, Colorado. During what was just one of at least 2,700 walkouts planned around the country, more than 100 Shore sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth graders joined an estimated 150,000 of their fellow students in every state to protest national, state, and local failures to take action on violence in schools.

According to the Shore walkout’s organizers, seventh graders Ella Williams and Mackenzie Holian, the purpose of the event was to show solidarity with the students of Parkland, Florida—where a gunman stormed Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on February 14, leaving 17 people dead—and to send the simple message that schools should be a safe environment for kids. “I think some people might misunderstand what our walkout is about,” said Holian. “For us, it’s not about guns; what it’s really about is that students shouldn’t have to worry about being hurt where they are learning.”

The walkout at Shore was entirely student-driven. Williams and Holian had watched coverage of the first national student walkout on March 14 as well as the national March for Our Lives on March 24, and were determined to plan their own student action at Shore. Holian said, “Seeing students lead the earlier events reaffirmed that we are the next generation that’s going to lead the country, and that it’s our job to change what we think needs to be changed to make our schools safer.”

Williams agreed, observing, “What’s great about getting involved in this movement is that we’re learning how to lead. I’ve always been interested in the Civil Rights movement—seeing young people in the 1960s doing things similar to what’s happening now—and this felt like the next step.” She continued, “We wanted to show that when something bad happens, don’t stand by; stand up. Kids have a voice and can use it for the greater good.”

During the walkout, which was scheduled at the same time as the thousands of other events nationwide, the two organizers led a silent march around Shore’s Oval; many students held signs with messages such as “Enough is enough” and “Fear has no place in our schools.” Head of School Clair Ward and numerous Shore faculty members joined the silent march, and when it was over, Ward addressed the solemn student audience.

“Today,” Ward said, “you join the voices of your peers in demanding that education should be safe for all kids across the country. Today you take a stand and send a message that as a nation we need to create a solution. We, as the adults in your life, stand beside you. We are committed to keeping you safe, and committed to helping your voices be heard. We are proud and lucky to be beside you, and today you make our school proud by taking this step to improve our safety with your voices.”

Interim Head of Upper School and English teacher Walter Morris also spoke, along with Spanish teacher Gretchen Bowder. Morris acknowledged failures on the part of the nation’s adults. “We all agree that schools should be places where students can come and be free of any worry about their safety. As adults, we want to promise to provide and protect that sense of security. Sadly, events like the tragedy in Florida demonstrate that we are failing to keep that promise. The aftermath of the Parkland shootings has also highlighted our failure to communicate with one another rationally and respectfully about what we can do to prevent or at least minimize the chances of more violence.”

Young people, Morris concluded, might be the ones who succeed where their parents have failed. “The children of our country are right to demand that we adults listen to what you have to say, and I hope that you’ll continue to ask hard questions, to insist on answers, and to hold your elders accountable.”

Bowder also spoke hopefully about the ability of children to affect change. “No one is too young to bring about important change. Ordinary young people have been critical to changing the laws, and to changing our lives, in the United States at many points in the past,” she said. She cited several moments in American history in which children’s actions had played a part. “In 1903, children got into cages to raise awareness of child labor issues, and they led the ‘March of the Mill Children,’ walking from Philadelphia to New York to protest labor conditions in the textile mills. … In 1951, 16-year-old Barbara Johns led a walkout at her all black high school in Virginia to protest the abysmal conditions there, and her case went all the way to the Supreme Court, where it became part of the Brown vs. Board of Education desegregation moment. … A few years later more than 1,000 children in Birmingham, Alabama, skipped class, and they marched in the streets to demonstrate for civil rights. Television footage of the police turning dogs and fire hoses on the children was a game changer for politicians at the national level.” Today, Bowder explained, the young people of the Black Lives Matter movement have made a fundamental impact on the national conversation about racial violence.

“Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said he was surrounded by ‘anonymous extraordinaries,’” she continued. “These are people who work selflessly and vigorously for what they believe in—people like you, people who are motivated by conviction, not recognition. I am pleased to see today that you are walking in their footsteps, following in a long tradition of student activism.”

When Mackenzie Holian, the event’s featured speaker, came to the podium, she also cited King, paraphrasing part of a well-known speech. “King said our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. We cannot be silent,” Holian urged, “because the safety of students has to matter. The safety of our communities has to matter. The safety of our country has to matter.”

Yet, Holian argued, while adults and world leaders may say that age doesn’t matter, that one can “be the change that you want to see” at any age, “As soon as our change doesn’t fit the outline provided for us, we are silenced. We are told that we are too young and don’t know what things are like in the real world. Well, guess what? I know that in the real world 17 people were killed in Parkland, and I know that in the real world 20 first graders were shot at Sandy Hook. I know that in the real world, we are the next generation of leaders and of people who will make this world a better place.”

Applause interrupted Holian’s speech as her words gathered momentum; many students held a friend’s hand or put an arm around a classmate’s shoulder. “We will make this world a better place not by arming people with guns, but by supplying them with facts and knowledge, by giving everyone an equal opportunity to succeed, and being kind to each and every person,” she argued. “I know that in the real world, I will use my voice to not only be the change that I want to see, but to be the change that needs to happen in order to keep our schools and our country safe.”

Holian returned to the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., as she brought the event to a close. “King also said, ‘We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now, and in this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late.’"

Holian said, "We need to do our part by speaking up. We can’t let anyone silence us or ignore us. If you have something to say, I urge you to say it—to stand up, and to shout it to the world. I urge you not to fit the outline given to us but to break it. We all need to say something before it truly is too late.”

Before students departed, Ella Williams read the names of the 17 students and teachers who died in the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, many of whom were close in age to those who now listened to their names at Shore. A moment of silence was held, and then these young people returned silently to class, aware that this Friday morning was different from all the others yet to come.